I received an E-mail from a very frustrated woman the other day who was struggling with keeping her eye on the ball regarding healthy living. She wrote, “I really have a bad attitude right now and am overeating because of it. Things are happening at work and I hate change. How do I get myself out of this?” I’m sure a lot of you can identify with this woman. When things around us start to go haywire, many people, just like this woman, often resort to their old friend “food” for comfort and medication.

And change is difficult for all of us to some degree. But there is another side to this as well. I like to think of change as an opportunity to explore new avenues. For example, if the woman who E-mailed me could reframe this change at work in terms of “at least I am employed,” she could inject some positive feelings into the picture. In a nutshell, your negative emotional reaction to change is tied to your negative thoughts about it. The solution is to find the positive aspects of change, force them to the forefront of your thinking and you will end up with an entirely different emotional package.